Psalm 91 speaks of a man blessed of God who isn’t afraid, even though arrows are flying by day and terror by night. This isn’t a picture of a serene life. I doubt whether any of us who walk with God could survive under the pressures we have entered into, if we did not look to the Lord.
Do you ever say, “I feel like flipping out,” because of the pressure you are under? Don’t worry about it—it is not going to go away; it is not even going to diminish. But you will increase in strength as you learn to live in God. Remember, There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted (or tested) above what you are able (to bear); but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.
You will not be able to bear it in yourself, but the way of escape is into Him. The Lord allows you to be put in a corner so you will appropriate Him more and learn to live in Him more. The whole objective of testing is not to make you a super-strong person, but to get you to live in God. This is what the Ninety-first psalm talks about—He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High—the man who learns to live in God.
You say, “Well, I have a lot of pressures.” Then learn to live in the Lord; learn to walk with Him; learn to be in His protection. This is what this Psalm is talking about. If there is any kind of pressure on you, come to the Lord a little more; come to the Communion and receive strength and life from the Lord. This is what you must do. If you say, “I have problems, but I’m going to work them out; I’m going to solve them,” you are taking the wrong approach. If you solve your problems, God will give you another set next week, because those problems are divinely designed to bring you into God.
Some of you have prayed, and prayed, and prayed again—week in and week out, year in and year out—to have a walk with God. Has God answered your prayer?
“No, He hasn’t answered my prayer. Instead of a walk with God I have nothing but pressure; I think I’ll go out of my mind!”
Don’t you understand what He is doing? You do not change naturally; change is not natural to man’s spirit. A person’s spirit is set, and it is very difficult to loose it so that is can begin to change. This is why you see what is in the nature and personality of a little child, and when he is grown you see those same characteristics. Spirits of people do not change as much as you might think. They are static and stable. Although personality may develop, a person’s spirit remains pretty much the same.
How is God going to change you? Beat the devil out of you, put you in one pressure after another, and just about the time you think, “Ah, the Lord was meeting my heart and I’m out from under this pressure, He will put you back into it. If you want to walk with God, if you want to change, if you want things to be different, He knows how to do it—He puts the pressure on. When you say, “I’m not able to bear it,” He will also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it. And that way of escape is coming into Him and becoming more dependent upon Him. This is the way change takes place, and those who normally would not walk with God find themselves walking with God.
Many of you came into this Walk only to find, almost immediately, the Lord did something beautiful—He started putting the pressure on. You probably thought, “What is it now, Lord? I got into this and I thought, ‘It’s going to be beautiful. I’m just going to go along serenely and be happy.‘ ” But you don’t change when you are serene and happy. The way to change is by the Lord keeping the pressure on you. You say, “I’ve been in trouble ever since I came into the Walk.” However, you are a very different person than when you came into the Walk. Change has come because the Lord has worked the change, and you have learned to live in the Lord. Even though some of you may need improvement in disciplining your life, in worship, and living in the Word, you have learned to live a life of trust in the Lord. God has so ordered your life, and so changed the pressures, that you laugh at the idea of worrying about what you worried about last year. They are nothing in your sight. Why? Because the Lord is giving you more pressures. It is unrelenting and increasing, until you open your spirit to the Lord and begin to walk with Him.
You say, “You’re certainly not going to win very many people to the Walk talking like that.” This message is not to draw you into the Walk; it is to explain the Walk to you so we won’t lose you out of it.
Psalm 91 talks about a man who learns to live in God. He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say to the Lord, “My refuge and my fortress (Do you need a refuge and a fortress from the battle?) My God, in whom I trust!” For it is He who delivers you from the snare of the trapper, and from the deadly pestilence. He will cover you with His pinions, and under His wings you may seek refuge; His faithfulness is a shield and bulwark.
You will not be afraid of the terror by night (understand that this is not a serene existence; there is terror in the night), or of the arrow that flies by day; of the pestilence that stalks in darkness, or of the destruction that lays waste at noon. A thousand may fall at your side, and ten thousand at your right hand… This is not a serene existence at all—not with a thousand here and ten thousand there. Because you have learned to live in God, He is your fortress and your refuge. You have learned to really put your trust in Him.
It shall not approach you. You will only look on with your eyes, and see the recompense of the wicked. You will see it happen, but you will not experience the terror and the frightening things which happen. I believe this ought to be the Psalm of people going into the tribulation and endtime events. “Lord, we’ll see it, but it is not going to approach me.”
You will only look on with your eyes, and see the recompense of the wicked. For you have made the Lord, my refuge, even the Most High, your dwelling place. No evil will befall you, nor will any plague come near your tent. For He will give His angels charge concerning you, to guard you in all your ways. They will bear you up in their hands, lest you strike your foot against a stone. You will tread upon the lion and the cobra, the young lion and the serpent (or the dragon) you will trample down. Do you see the precious thing of the Lord and say, “This is beautiful, but it hasn’t worked in my life”? That is because you were not living in the Lord; you had not made Him your dwelling place.
Whenever you run in rebellion, you will find that this does not work. Make the Lord your fortress; protection is only in that fortress; when serious difficulties have befallen you, and you have lost out with the Lord and become greatly discouraged and depressed, it is because you have not lived continually in the Lord. Snap out of it and get back in to the Lord! The way of rebellion, the way of the transgressor is hard. There is no reason why God should have to deal with His people like He does—with the rod for the back of fools (Proverbs 26:3). Listen to His Word and be easily entreated; learn to dwell and live in that place of security and refuge in the Lord.
The Lord speaks as this Psalm continues. He gives the promise: Because he has loved Me (that is the man who dwells in the Lord), therefore I will deliver him; I will set him securely on high, because he has known My name. He will call upon Me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will rescue him, and honor him. With a long life I will satisfy him, and let him behold my salvation. Psalm 91:14–16. The declarations of the Lord to the man who will live his life in Him are beautiful. Learn to live there.
This is one of the two Psalms that are reputed to have come from the hand of Moses in the wilderness. The other is the Ninetieth Psalm. He may have written other psalms, but this is a good wilderness Psalm; so if you are in a wilderness, just reach into Psalm 91 and sing it. The Ninetieth Psalm is very similar to Psalm 91, except that it has so much pessimism concerning the frailty of man. It starts with the same idea, however: Lord, Thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations. Psalm 90:1.
We are going to learn how to live in the shelter of the Lord, under His shadow. We will have one special address, and people will say, “John Doe Believer? What’s his address?” … in the Lord. We say, “Lord, Thou hast been my dwelling place in all generations.” We will learn to live in God. The residence of your spirit is more important than the physical residence where you live. You must say, “My spirit resides in the Lord; I have learned to live in Him. I have learned to make Him my protection, my shield, and my buckler.” All of these things are described in Psalm 91.
Many things can happen around us, but I am convinced I will not be a total casualty. I may be wounded, and God may put pressure on me to get me to walk with Him. Fine—this is all well and good, but the one thing I am going to do is learn to walk with God with all my heart. This I will do, and God will bring me through.
Satan tries to find some excuse in your spirit to nullify everything God is doing. And if he can get you to be rebellious, he can succeed, and you lose a great deal more than just protection. Even a little child has angel protection. Jesus said, … their angels do always behold the face of my Father who is in heaven. Matthew 18:10. This means that the angel spirits given charge over children have a hotline to heaven. The Heavenly Father always sees these angels; He always beholds them. But a strange thing happens when Satan works in the hearts of young people to produce rebellion. The minute children become rebellious, they lose their protection. The angels know that a third of the angels were swept out of heaven under the rebellion. The angels know what that means and are quick to line up.
Open your heart to God. A little child is told, “Obey your parents.” This is the first commandment with promise, “that your days may be long in the land and it will be well with you” (Deuteronomy 5:16). You will keep immunities and protections as long as you live if you start as a child learning to be submissive and obedient. But if you become rebellious, you will be surprised how many things will happen to you. Satan is making a bid for this generation because it is marked for God. In this generation will come forth the sons and the daughters who prophesy. But they will not be rebellious children; they will be submissive children.
The bid of Satan is to produce rebellion in the hearts, not only of children, but also of older ones. He does this so you will blow your protection. When you become rebellious you find yourself in more trouble than you ever dreamed possible. Nothing is more dangerous, or will align you with the enemy quicker, than rebellion in your heart. This is why submission to the Lord is so very important. If you are on a course of prayer, Satan cannot be more effective to stop you from getting the answer you are believing for than to move in on you and give you a battle over rebellion. When you become rebellious you lose your answer immediately, because the angels of protection who are working immunity for you, and those who are working out the plan and the purpose of the Lord for you, abandon the project. You are left sitting there wondering, “What happened to me? What took it away?”
One thing you should do is to come and live in the Lord, in the shadow of His wings; set your love upon Him and refuse to be rebellious. Then you can go back and pick up some of those things you may have blown along the way. This is a true picture of what takes place in a person’s spirit. Open your heart completely to the Lord; get rid of the rebellion.
You say, “Well, I became rebellious, and look what happened to me”; then you begin to feel sorry for yourself. That’s just a great big shame; you asked for it. Now, ask God to forgive you, but not with a negative repentance which comes and says, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry; I failed you, Lord. I was rebellious and I’m sorry, Lord.” That is just the negative side of it. The positive side is to get in there and begin to submit to the Lord; get into that place of submission and say, “Lord, I’m going to walk with you.” It is not enough to just get rid of the negative; you must get into the positive dedication.
Satan will try to push you into a corner and make you rebellious, right at a time when the Body is going to inherit unbelievable blessings through obedience to the Lord in fastings, prayers, and intercession. God is ready to pour the blessing out on us. If Satan can get you to be rebellious now, he can cause you to lose all you have gained, because your whole spiritual support will suddenly abandon you when you line yourself up with the rebellious one.
It will not be enough for you to say, “Lord, Lord, we prophesied in Thy name; we did many mighty works.” He will say, “Depart from Me, you rebellious ones, you lawless ones” (Matthew 7:22, 23). This is the key. I don’t care how many miracles you can perform or how you prophesy, if you become rebellious you are on the wrong side of the fence. You either line up under the divine order, under the Lord Jesus Christ, or you will be lined up with rebellion in your heart against the Lord.
You say, “Well, I’m not for the devil!” You don’t have to be for the devil; the moment you are rebellious against the Lord you have no protections against the devil at all. God says there is going to be no rebellion among His people. In the Old Testament, if a priest would give a Word from the Lord and a man refused to hear it and rebelled against the Lord, they would kill him right there on the spot. That is what they did under the law, but it has a symbolic significance to us also. When you become rebellious you will find yourself under the dealings of the Lord.
When Samuel came to King Saul and found Saul had not obeyed the Word of the Lord in killing King Agag and the Amalekites.… Samuel said, “Has the Lord as much delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of divination (or witchcraft), and the insubordination is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, He has also rejected you from being king.” I Samuel 15:22, 23. There was no hope for Saul; he never recovered. He went on tormented because he knew, even though he existed, he was rejected. He lived out his days, and they were all failures, tormented with an evil spirit in fear and jealousy of David.
Submit yourselves therefore to God. James 4:7. Come right under His hand and say, “Lord, I’m going to walk with You. Whatever You put me through, I will believe there is a way of escape into You. Instead of becoming rebellious when the pressure is on, I will come and submit myself all the more to You.”
Live in the Lord; dwell in God; be submissive to Him. Open your heart and say, “I know the pressure has been on me, and I will admit that God is dealing with my heart. Here I am, repenting of my rebellion, submitting myself all over again to the Lord. If I have lost any ground, I know God can help me catch it up quickly, but there is no way of restitution and restoration unless I repent of the rebellion that has been seething in my spirit. I repent of it, in the name of the Lord, and submit to the Lord in everything. Teach me how to lay my life once more at Your feet. Here I am, Lord, a living sacrifice, to be holy and acceptable in Thy sight. I repent of murmuring against your dealings when they were only designed to teach me how to walk with You.
Lord, forgive me of all my rebellious ways. Let your Spirit teach me perfect submission. Protect me. Be my refuge and strength. I am going to live under Your shadow. Let nothing remain that will keep me from your perfect best. Jesus, I love you. I submit to your will. You are my Lord.”
The Lord will work total deliverance. He wants it done. There is nothing more important than the promise which God has given of loosing us from the rebellion and our moving under the blessing of the Lord. There is nothing more important than appropriating that promise fully. The way of escape does not mean just before you fail, while you are failing, or after you fail. There is always a way of escape for you, anytime, in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread and drink of the cup. For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself, if he does not judge the body rightly. For this reason many among you are weak and sick, and a number sleep. But if we judge ourselves rightly, we should not be judged. But when we are judged, we are disciplined by the Lord in order that we may not be condemned along with the world. I Corinthians 11:27–32.
There are practices, centuries old, of coming to confession before partaking of the Lord’s supper. It is wise. The ministry of absolution is very real. It was the risen Christ who told the disciples, Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; whose soever sins ye retain they are retained. John 20:23. Believe God to purge out from your heart those “little foxes that spoil the vine” (Song of Solomon 2:15): the little things that have kept you spinning your wheels when you should have been moving on—those little things you didn’t know were distracting you and holding back your prayers. Believe God to root them out. Believe God for a complete release, for the absolute and perfect remission of your sins.
Lord, we look unto Thee, and we take that forgiveness, by confession deep in our hearts, of what we need. Thou shalt forgive us, cleanse us, and open the door to walk with Thee. Let there be no more rebellion, O Master, for Thou hast proclaimed the blood shall cover. We believe for a change in our nature, to be new creatures, to walk away from Thy altars and not doubt, but to accept Thy provision completely. Amen.
This is the hour of change; this is the day of release. The Lord will make your way perfect and loose your spirit from every faltering step and loose you from everything that would not respond with a whole heart, soul, mind, and strength in perfect submission unto the Lord of Hosts, in the name of the Lord. As you voice this in faith, that sin is remitted; it is taken care of. And as you carefully judge yourself, you shall not be judged and condemned with the world. The rebelliousness of the world shall have no part in Zion, for Zion shall worship her Lord and she will walk in His ways. Amen.
The Lord would speak to your hearts and say, “Behold, this word has come unto thee, not as a word of judgment that is irrevocable, but that ye might understand the gracious dealings and chastenings of the Lord that hath been upon thee, O House of the Lord. The Lord hath spoken unto thee, not because thy rebellion is final and the Lord hath turned away, but because He hath seen that every taint of rebellion must be uprooted from the hearts of the people, and He hath set before thee deliverance. Whoever heareth the Word of the Lord, will not the Lord deliver thee? If ye believe, is it not an hour in which the Lord shall root it out? He shall lay the axe to the root, and thou shalt find that the plant of rebellion shall not spring up against you again. For the Lord shall deal with it.
Come wholeheartedly before the Lord. Present your heart with all submission unto the Lord, for the Lord will deliver. Yea, this is the promise of the Lord. The iniquity that has risen up within thy spirit to torment thee and to divert thy ways from the Lord, shall He not remove it from thee? If ye confess, is He not faithful to forgive and to cleanse from all unrighteousness and to bring you into that submission to the Lord until thou shalt walk as dearly beloved children? Thou shalt walk with His favor resting upon thee.
Thou shalt be termed “favored” before the face of the Lord, for the Lord shall have mercy. He shall bring forth all of His will within thee, and thou shalt not be as a derelict who has wandered because of thy rebellious way. Thou shalt not be turned out of the way because of the evil in thy heart. The Lord shall deliver thee. Even this hour He shall deliver thy heart, if ye shall wholly look unto the Lord. Blessed is the one who seeth his need so that he may draw from the Spirit of the Lord, according to the gracious words of the Lord, and be loosed in the name of the Lord. Amen.
The Lord would say unto thy heart, “This is the day that I bring forth the signs of the Spirit, that that which was cut off may be restored, and that which is lame may be healed that it be not turned out of the way, that the Lord may remove from the House of the Lord every rebellious thing that would prevent their walking with Him.
No longer shall they walk with brother divided against brother, nor shall there be deep animosity in their heart. They shall not walk before the Lord with confusion and say, “I know not the ways of the Lord; I seek Him but He hides His face from me. I worship Him, but He beats me and chastens me sorely.” But thou shalt say in thy heart, “This day I have submitted unto the Lord, and the Lord hath removed from me my transgressions. The Lord hath brought to me the blessing that hath released my spirit.” This is a day thou shalt come before the altars of the Lord with faith. Thou shalt believe the Lord shall uproot it and the Lord shall loose you. Amen.